Ethan's Quote of the Day

Ethan, who loves watermelon and had almost devoured a whole one, although a small seedless one, said, "Mom, I'm glad Dad bought watermelon, it gives me power to run fast."

Quinn & Power

Quinn did the sweetest thing today. Early this morning he came into my room, tapped me awake, and then said, "I made breakfast." In my groggy state, I wasn't sure what he said, I only know I heard something about breakfast. Of course after he had woken me up, I rolled over mumbling "hmm." Remember, I'm not a morning person, and today was one of those great sleep in mornings, you know the kind where it is cloudy outside, so it is dark inside. It was raining this morning, which will bring me to my next topic "power." I did get up a few minutes later, my bladder was calling, and I went to investigate what this thing was that Quinn had woken me up about. There he sat at the table amongst 5 place settings and 5 cups of juice. Each plate had a bagel on it with cream cheese. I said, "you made breakfast?" He said, "yes, and it took me forever." How sweet is that!

So, Quinn and I ate breakfast alone, since everyone else was sleeping. Quinn eventually woke up Alex, so then the three of us finished our breakfast. Then the power went out. Thankfully Quinn had breakfast all made, so I didn't have to figure out what I was going to make with no electricity. God must have been speaking to Quinn this morning providing us with a meal before the power went out!

So the next picture is the boys sitting at the table doing school work by lamp light. Ethan just joined us to eat his cold bagel and Anna is still sleeping in. I think she takes after me and Alex on the sleeping issue!

The power eventually came back on after more than 2 hours. I usually kind of enjoy the first hour of no power, as long as it comes at a "convenient" time. It allows me to take a break from the chores that I can't do without power and I usually take that time to read to the kids. But by the time the second full hour passes without power, I'm ready for it to come back on so that I can do all those chores that need to be done and require power, like take a shower. Living in the country and requiring the use of a pump to get water from the well, makes me a little envious of you city dwellers! Not really, I love my country life! I just always keep a couple of jugs of water handy for these power outages. And they normally happen every time it rains. It hasn't been raining all that often lately, so even when we lose power, we have to be thankful for the rain that is so needed.

Kid Follies

Nothing too exciting has been going on these last few days, so I will tell you a few cute things the kids have done or said recently.


Domenick had bought some Peanut M&M’s and Quinn wanted to know if he could have some. I said that he could have a handful. A few minutes later, I walked into the kitchen to find Quinn with the nut cracker. He was cracking open the Peanut M&M’s and removing the peanut. LOL! I told him not to waste the peanut, someone will eat it and he said, “Oh, I’m not wasting them. I’m giving them to Ethan, he likes them.”


Yesterday, Quinn killed a wasp that made its way into our house. Ethan was with him and said, “Be careful, its stingray may still be alive.”


This will touch any homeschooling mother’s heart. Quinn and Alex were at the table one day doing their school work and Quinn said, “ I’m glad we’re homeschooled, aren’t you Alex?” Ahhh! Music to my ears! Makes it all worth it.


The other morning Dom went into the kids room to wake them up early, since we needed to get somewhere that day in a timely fashion. He then came to tell me that Alex is just like me. When he told them it was time to get up, Ethan sat right up in bed, ready to go; Quinn stretched and looked around; and Alex said “Oh, God.” Yes, Alex and I are not morning people and we don’t like to get up.


I’ll try and make this a regular piece on my blog. Kids are always saying the “darnest” things and I never remember them years down the road, so by writing about them here, I’m keeping a record that can be enjoyed in the years to come.

Zucchini Anyone?

Domenick fixed a computer for someone the other day and the guy wanted to know how much he owed Dom. Dom said “whatever is in your heart.” Well this guy’s heart is full of vegetables. He brought Dom a bunch of onions, some turnips (which I thought were really big radishes until my sister suggested they might be turnips), a couple heads of cabbage and some collard greens. I had no idea what to do with the collard greens since I am Yankee born and bred, and I had every intention to look up a recipe to find out what to do with collard greens, but they got tossed into my crisper drawer in my spare refrigerator and forgotten about. So now they are compost food (lazy man’s compost that is, just toss in garden and let nature do the rest). A couple of days ago, Dom brought these zucchinis home from the same guy (not sure when his heart will say "paid in full"), 30 of the biggest zucchinis that I had ever seen (make that 31, Dom found a loner in his truck yesterday). So what do I do with these enormous zucchinis? I process them. Just me and my food processor. Kelly Clarkson & Carrie Underwood joined in on the fun too. Of course they were in the CD player, but hey they helped me pass the time! (Do you see an American Idol theme going on?) The other CD’s in my five disk chamber didn’t get a chance to serenade me before I was done, but if I had given them a chance, Steven Curtis Chapman, Zoe Girl and Mercy Me would have joined in on the fun. (There’s my Christian theme, which is really all I ever listen too, but I do give other artists a chance. It’s only fair!) There are my finished products. All ready to go into the freezer to later become zucchini bread or stir fry. I left a couple of whole ones to become stir fry sooner rather than later. What’s in the measuring cup turned into this.

Zucchini Bread Anyone? Yum! Yum! Don’t you wish you were here?

My Zucchini Bread Recipe

This is a doubled recipe, (because with a family of six, why bother with less?) Only attempt if you are a trained professional (LOL), because this BARELY fits into the Kitchen Aide, although I make it work. So be careful, it’s messy.

Make 2 Loaves & 1 Mini

6 Eggs
1½ C. Milk
2 C. Oil
3 C. Sucanat w/Honey (or you can use reg. Sugar)
6¾ C. Soft White Flour (whole wheat pastry flour)
2¼ t. Baking Soda
1½ t. Baking Powder
1½ t. Salt
4½ t. Cinnamon
¾ t. Ground Cloves
4½ C. Shredded Zucchini
6 t. Vanilla

I beat the eggs first, then add the sucanat (this seems to help dissolve the sucanat better). Then add milk, oil & vanilla. In separate bowl, sift together flour, soda, powder, salt, cinnamon, & cloves. Slowly, by tablespoon full, add flour mixture. Then add zucchini. Pour into 2 greased loaf pans and 1 greased mini-loaf pan. Bake @ 350° for 55-60 minutes.

This was my breakfast this morning (with Anna's hand getting ready to dig in). Vegetables for breakfast? Yes, they are actually good with eggs. My MIL "taught" me how to cook zucchini with eggs and a little Parmesan. They're good. I stir-fried zucchini w/onions (a whole one, because in my book, you can never have enough), and corn (I like to add corn, gives a sweet crunch). I scrambled some eggs (from my chickens!), heated up some left-over homefries (BTW, left-over baked potatoes make awesome homefries) and toasted some BUNS? I grind my own flour (yes, that is strange for some) and I wasn't happy with the texture of my bread. I got tired of it, so until I can get myself a nice Bosch mixer that makes awesome loaves of bread (taste tested in my sister's kitchen), I have started using my bread machine to mix up my dough. Then I proceed to make that dough into rolls, let rise, then bake and now we eat everything on buns, even PB & J! It eliminates the crumbs from slicing, already is portioned controlled, and I no longer have to cut off the crusts off of slices of bread. My kiddos eat the whole portion (except sometimes, Quinn, who I have to remind that there are no longer "crusts" to avoid eating and you can eat the whole thing!).

Footnote:

For those who are not up on "texting lingo,"

MIL = Mother-n-Law

BTW = By The Way

LOL = Laugh out Loud

Meet Our Critters

I would like to introduce you to the critters who live at our homestead. You've already met the chickens, so here are the rest.

Starting with Dottie Dog who is not looking too happy with the chick on her back (thanks to Quinn). She is our oldest critter, turning 12 years in June.

Next is Ashley Cat, who had three kittens eight weeks ago. The little one in this picture beside her is Princess with a gorgeous white belly and gray stripes running through it. Who I am happy to point out to you is not all black or all gray. Our previous litters of kittens have been solid black or gray, so I am tickled pink (a color of kittens that we don't have, yet) that we now have kittens that have markings and down below you'll see one that is even more colorful (for us, at least). In front of Princess, is Friskie whom you will meet next.

Here is a closer look at Princess and her stripes.

Here is Friskie. He has a sweet personality and is most seen with one of the kids toting him around. Of course, he looks just like his mother and is completely gray with no markings.

Our crown jewel, Tiger. Look, she has markings! The kids were having fun with her last night by placing a tiny hat on her head. Her look reminds me of Dottie in the picture at top. Do you think they are thinking "these darn kids?"

This is Scat. He is the big brother to these kittens, being born last year by Ashley. He is very skittish, unlike his mother who is very loving and gentle. I was worried how he would treat the kittens, but he has been great with them. Last night I enjoyed watching him play with Friskie, acting just like a big brother while wrestling around with him.


I mentioned in my profile that we have a raccoon who thinks he is part of our family, well here he is. He enjoys coming up on our back porch to eat the cat food and drink or wash his hands in the water bowl. The cats ignore him and will continue napping if he comes while they are snoozing on the porch. He also is not very scared of us when we go out while he is there. He will go up a tree that is right next to our porch and look down at us, waiting for us to leave so he can resume his supper.

Here is three more of our critters with Tiger. Last night Alex and Quinn brought Anna in on her "Princess Bed" as we like to call it while she was holding Tiger (right before Tiger got her picture taken with the hat on). You can see they are supposed to be getting ready for bed, since they do have PJ's on, but they decided to tote their sister around before brushing their teeth.

There is a story behind the Princess Bed. Last year while vacationing in upstate NY, we were in Walmart and Anna spied this Princess Bed. I was in another part of the store while Dom had Anna and a few other kids (don't recall which ones), so the story came from him. Anyway, Anna would grab this bed off the shelf and then Dom would proceed to put back the Princess Bed and Anna would then march back to get it again. This happened several times, until Daddy gave into his little Princess and bought her the bed. It really did say "Princess Bed" on the tag, except it is meant for a dog! But don't tell Anna, she loves her Princess Bed and her brothers tote her around on it like she is royalty.

Now I have shown you all our critters even the three child critters above. But I couldn't leave out our Ethan critter. Here he is on his 4th birthday (Nov. 11) last year. Isn't he a cutie?

Anna & Quinn

Yesterday, Dom (short for Domenick - it's easier to type) finally put up a swing for Anna and here she is on it (don't tell her brothers that it's hers, they think it is for everyone, which it is;). I've been wanting to hang a swing from this particular tree ever since we moved here. It's only been almost four years, so better late than never. I finally "convinced" him that his little girl needed a swing and you can see how she enjoys it.








Here's a closer view of Anna,
dirty dress and all.





The swing is located near our "tree fort" that Dom and I built several years ago. We had seen a light house/tree house built like this many years ago when Alex was a baby. We had dreamed of the day when we could finally build it and with 5 acres, we finally had the room and we jumped at the chance to tackle the project. It's three stories high and was a slight challange to build, especally getting the roof in place. Dom built the roof on the ground, had me standing on the third level to help pull it up, while he carried the roof on his back up a ladder. I was praying the whole time that, one Dom wouldn't fall and get hurt, two that I wouldn't fall and get hurt, and three that the roof wouldn't fall and get hurt. As you can see, God answered my prayers! - at least the roof part!





With the extra rope Domenick had left over from hanging the swing, he made a rope ladder to attatch to the tree fort. Here is Quinn making his way up the ladder to the second floor. Don't worry, he is a "professional climber" and has even scaled rock walls.











-----See, there he is.----->













<----------- Here is Quinn being silly with a little chick on his head.

Chicks

Chicks arrive from Postal Carrier

Quinn & Alex with new chicks

Today was the long awaited day for our baby chicks to arrive. Forty Five of them to be exact, except we had two casualties right out of the gate and then another one while I was writing this post (that might have been a child's fault, but we'll never know). Poor chickies. Our wonderful postal carrier (I'm P.C. here because I'm usually not and usually say mailman) Kathy, brought them to us today. This is a business venture for Quinn (aka - son #2), who can not wait to start selling eggs to make some $$$. Of course I told him it will be awhile before that starts happening, but he is excited and can't wait. He invested $100 of his own money to buy these chicks, even passing up the opportunity to spend that money on candy one day in the store. I guess he loves animals more than candy. That is truly a shocker for my Quinn who has a major sweet tooth.

Our newly constructed chicken coop

We have tried having chickens in the past with disastrous results. We have wild critters who love chicken! And they will do anything to get into the coop. After each lost chicken, we would tighten up the hatches only to succumb to loss again. So now we totally redid our coop and moved it to a new location. This baby is Fort Knox of Chicken Coops. If anything gets into this one, they win, we lose. We have wall to ceiling wire and buried chicken wire on the ground, so nothing should be able to dig its way in. So far so good! We have kept our 10 Bantums safe and are enjoying fresh eggs daily. Of course they are the size of a robin's egg, just kidding, they are larger than that. About half the size of a "normal" egg, so it takes two in place of one egg in a recipe.

The Lone Rooster

When we first acquired our current adult chickens, we had two escapees, a hen and a rooster. They were rather cute running around the yard. Then we were able to catch the hen and now she resides in the coop with the other layers. But now we have a lone rooster as you can see him in the picture above. I feel sorry for him with no one to keep him company anymore. We have three roosters already in the coop and really don't need another one in there. Catching him has proven futile, but maybe one day... Of course with these 42 new chicks, we will have to be adding onto our existing coop so they all will have plenty of room. Maybe the rooster can reside with them someday.

The Beginning of CasaBellaBella

Wow, I can't believe it! I have a blog! Thanks to many friends who encouraged me and told me how easy it was to set up. I hope to commemorate our family life for the future. How this will evolve, only God knows, but I am excited to start the journey.